The Promises I Keep

Subscription updates and the permission to set my own pace.

A note from Anna: Today’s letter includes important updates about Unsupervised subscriptions and love-letter frequency. If you are an avid reader, a paid reader, a new reader, or someone who recently decided to stop paying for these letters, I hope you will read this one to the end.

To my dearest reader,

This week is the second of which I am suffering from Poison Oak exposure on my arms, legs, and ears for the very first time. Over the last year, I’ve watched my partner and landmates deal with multiple exposures because as it happens, we live in a sanctuary for the native perennial. I’m learning that the depth of California’s beauty is rarely witnessed without risk, and for reasons still unknown (a dog? a jacket I thrifted? the sofa?), now it is my turn to itch.

Last night the temptation to scratch myself into a stupor was so severe that I remembered an episode of Friends where Phoebe tapes oven mits over her hands after getting the Chicken Pox, and I considered doing the same. I slept on my back with my hands under my ass instead, though I didn’t get much rest.

I’m writing to let you know that I still haven’t reclaimed winter like I thought I would, and my body is revolting. Last week, when I heard that the rain was coming, I decided to fully send it and buy a mini-trampoline to keep the blood flowing on days mostly spent indoors. The benefits of rebounding are everywhere I look, which is another way of saying that the algorithm has figured out which benefits I am looking for and exactly how to bait me.

It worked. $500 and two days later, an impossibly large and hard to put together trampoline arrived at the ranch. I paid extra for one that folds in half, an extremely important feature that ensured I could hide the trampoline from my partner and landmates, therefore concealing the fact that I’ve completely lost my mind.

I quickly discovered that the trampoline does fold in half, but only by undoing the aforementioned set up with an equally difficult and time-consuming breakdown, one that I will never do. And so now my bedroom, which was functioning as my distribution center, art studio, pilates studio, and self-care, sleep, and sex palace, has been reduced to one thing, which is a trampoline room.

The good news is that the trampoline is really fun and is helping with my circulation problems. In fact, it is so fun that I used it twice in one day shortly after it arrived and subsequently pulled a muscle in my back.

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Dear reader, I need to slow down. Giving myself the flowery permission to do so wasn’t enough to get me to change, and so I’m thinking about the promises I’ve made and how I can re-write them going forward into the new year.

There was a time when Unsupervised was just a bud and needed my constant attention in order to grow into something more. What was once just a website with one letter now holds sixty-five confessions. I started with a few hundred readers; now there are 17,000 of you.

Unsupervised doesn’t take care of itself — I tend to it diligently and think about it constantly. But I have proven to myself over the last year and a half that these letters are something good, no matter how frequently I publish them. They will still be good if I write them less often. There is a new budding project in my life that needs all of me right now. Nope, it’s not a baby — it’s the studio.

Besides the fact that I’m building a third space with little help and even less money, I also want to publish less often because I want to know that my practice is one of integrity. I’ve said it from the beginning: I want to write from my heart. Sometimes there’s a lot on it, like in October when I published four letters, including this one. Other times, weeks go by with only one important thing to say, like the letter I wrote earlier this month, You and I are Earth.

I personally think it’s better when I focus on good and proof-read writing. Getting caught up in meeting a quota enhances the likelihood of my publishing nonsense, turning my letters into fast food that infiltrates your inbox every week.

I want to believe that my readers agree with me, and yet I feel like if I don’t harass you or force the issue, my numbers drop. No matter how much we witness the perils of overproduction and expansion, people still measure the worth of these letters not by their quality, but by how often I write them.

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Since October, I’ve watched T. build the plywood palace of my dreams by hand. I paid him for the buildout, but I know that the money is irrelevant to his attention and craftsmanship. Similarly, the love that I bring to my writing doesn’t depend on whether I get paid for it or not. What changes for me when money is involved is the pressure I feel to be enough, and that pressure doesn’t feel good.

While contributions from my paid subscribers make up a huge portion of my income — money that would be difficult not to have — the reason some of my letters live behind a paywall is because I don’t want every Dick and Harry reading about when my heart is at its most troubled. The paywall is one way I maintain a sense of privacy, even if I’m kidding myself. Some readers circumvent this by paying for a month, reading everything, and then dipping out. In surfing we call this “snaking” somebody.

There is only so much I can control. In fact, there are actually just three things I can control: the writing, the value I place on it, and when I decide to share it. In 2024, I don’t want to make promises to anybody about my writing except for me, and maybe my book agent.

What feels good to me right now is the freedom to write at my own pace, and so I have made the paid tiers to Unsupervised more accessible. I’d love to set the monthly paid subscription to $3 a month, but unfortunately Substack has a $5 minimum. The best way I can get around this is to make the upfront annual subscription $36, instead of $50 like it has been for almost two years.

The founding membership plan will remain set at $100, which includes access to all of my letters, a free print or poster from my website every year* and a $25 discount on a one-on-one creative coaching session with me.

Dear reader, I give myself permission to write one, two, or five letters a month.

I give myself permission to take complete breaks from Substack during December/January and July/August.

I give myself permission to trust that the readers who really see me are in it for the long haul. I’m in it for the long haul, too.

As

Chris La Tray

said, “I believe the people who value my writing also understand the concept that paying for something you value and can afford is a kind of mutual aid. The rewards come from the universe, not from anything additional you’ll get here.”

Thank you for coming, for coming and going. Thank you for staying.

Love,

Anna